The Haystack Read Online Free Page B

in our gate. Freddy still hadn’t come out.
    “One of the chooks is clucky,” I told Dad.
    “You know what to do.”
    “Plook! Plook!” She didn’t like me lifting her off the china egg. “Plook! Plook!” She sat on the ground when I put the box over her, and she didn’t like it when I called her Freddy Jones and tipped the water over her.
    “It’s for your own good,” I told her. “It’ll give you something to think about, and it’ll take you off the cluck.”
    It’s no use trying to explain things to chooks. They don’t take any notice of anything I say, except when they’re hungry.
    After lunch, I’d put on my shoes and was walking round and round my room. Dad was still sitting at the table, and he could see me.
    “Those shoes look a bit tight.”
    “I’m practising limping.”
    “Why on earth…?”
    “Colleen Porter had the infantile, and she still limps. She’s nice, Colleen.”
    “Well, don’t let her see you doing it. Put your foot up here.” Dad pushed on the toes and poked his finger down the side of my shoes. “They’re not bad for room, but you’re going to need something a bit warmer for winter.”
    “We’re learning a poem—about buying new shoes.”
    “How does it go?”
    “I don’t think you’ll like it…”
    “Let’s hear it.”
    I stood up straight, as Mr Strap taught us when we were doing Choral Speaking, stretched my lips back and smiled, as Mr Strap taught us, and said, “‘Choosing Shoes’ by Frida Wolfe.
    “‘Choosing Shoes’ is the name of the poem, and Frida Wolfe’s the person who wrote it,” I told Dad. “We have to poke out our lips when we say ‘ch’ and ‘sh’.”
    “Why?”
    “Mr Strap says so.”
    “Go on.”
    I shut my eyes, thought of how to hold my lips, and recited:
    Choosing Shoes
    by Frida Wolfe
New shoes, new shoes,
    Red and pink and blue shoes.
    Tell me, what would you choose,
    If they’d let us buy?
    Buckle shoes, bow shoes,
    Pretty pointy-toe shoes,
    Strappy, cappy low shoes;
    Let’s have some to try.
    Bright shoes, white shoes,
    Dandy-dance-by-night shoes,
    Perhaps-a-little-tight shoes,
    Like some? So would I.
    BUT
    Flat shoes, fat shoes,
    Stump-along-like-that shoes,
    Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes,
    That’s the sort they’ll buy.
    Dad laughed till he dropped the paper and fell off his chair. I had to help him up.
    “I haven’t heard such a good poem for ages.” He wiped his eyes. “I like the way you push out your lips and make your mouth round. Why do you close your eyes?”
    “It helps me remember.”
    “Fancy Mr Strap teaching you that one.”
    “Do you know it?”
    “The girls had to learn it when I was at school, and the boys had to learn ‘Young Lochinvar’, but we didn’t know about pushing out our lips and making our mouths round. That poem’s given me an idea.”
    “Are you going to buy me some ‘pretty pointy-toe shoes’?”
    “Not on your Nelly. ‘Flat shoes, fat shoes, stump-along-like-that shoes.’”
    “‘Wipe-them-on-the-mat shoes,’” I said.
    “‘That’s the sort they’ll buy,’” we said together.
    Dad wiped his eyes again, and said, “We’ll see, next time we go up to Matamata.” I had to be satisfied with that.

Chapter Eight
Sacks on the Mill, Roosting with Chooks, and Why You Must Be Careful Sleeping Under a Haystack.
    A LOT OF KIDS GO BAREFOOT all winter. On frosty mornings, Mr Strap says, “You look as if you need warming up,” and takes us outside. “Ready—Steady—Go!” The winner’s whoever gets round the school first. If you slide over on the corners, everyone piles on top: “Sacks on the mill. More on still.” You take the skin off your knees on the tarseal, and that hurts.
    Some kids limp along; some don’t run, and Mr Strap doesn’t make them. The ones who look the coldest, a girl in my class and her brother in standard two, stand and watch the rest of us running and yelling. At lunch-time, they sit alone on the seats under the windows, a long way apart.